How to Hire a Builder

What makes hiring a general builder different

Scale and duration. A general builder is not doing one task, they are coordinating electricians, plumbers, plasterers and others across weeks or months, with your money moving throughout.

That creates two risks that smaller trades do not carry. First, exposure over time: if things go wrong at week eight of a sixteen-week job, you have already paid a great deal for something half-built. Second, coordination failure: the builder may be competent and the job still fail because the trades arrived in the wrong order or not at all.

You are hiring project management as much as building work, and it is worth being explicit that this is what you are buying.

Registrations and accreditation

There is no single licence for general building, which is precisely why checking matters here.

Look for TrustMark or Buy with Confidence membership, verified on the scheme's register. Check that the specialist trades they bring in hold what they legally need, Gas Safe for gas, a competent person scheme for notifiable electrical work.

Confirm employers' liability cover, since a general builder almost always has people on site, and contract works cover on larger projects.

What a good builder's quote looks like

• Itemised by element, groundworks, structure, roof, first fix, second fix, finishes
• A clear statement of which trades are included and which you are arranging
• Exclusions, spelled out: making good, decoration, flooring, fittings
• Whether building control fees and applications are included
• A programme showing the sequence, not just a finish date
• Named allowances for items not yet chosen, so you know what has been assumed

The allowances point causes more arguments than anything else. If the quote assumes a certain figure for kitchen units or bathroom fittings and you then choose otherwise, that difference has to land somewhere. Better to see the number now.

Deposits and payment stages

Larger jobs mean more stages, and that works in your favour, each one is a checkpoint. It also means the deposit does not need to be large: with eight or more payment points carrying the job, around 10% up front is reasonable even on a substantial build. A large deposit on a heavily staged project is doing something other than buying materials.

Tie stages to visible structural milestones: foundations complete, walls to plate height, roof watertight, first fix complete, plastered, second fix complete. Each is something you or a surveyor can assess without specialist knowledge.

Avoid stages defined by date. On a job this long, a date-based schedule will pull you ahead of the work within a month.

What usually goes wrong

• Scope creep, a hundred small changes, none priced at the time, all argued about at the end
• The builder disappearing to another job, usually because a client there is paying faster
• Subcontractor gaps, a trade does not turn up and the whole programme stalls
• Building control problems discovered late, when work has been covered up
• Payments drifting ahead of progress, one reasonable-sounding request at a time

Questions to ask a builder

• What else will you be working on while this job runs?
• Who manages the subcontractors day to day, and is that in the price?
• Which trades are included and which am I arranging?
• Who submits and manages the building control applications?
• What allowances have you assumed for anything I have not yet chosen?
• How will variations be priced and agreed?